Sunday, December 5, 2010

Argentina - El Calafate - Patagonia

We loved Chile, the people were really friendly, the landscapes were amazing, and there was lots to do. But, unfortunately we had to leave because we were running out of time. We had a flight booked from El Calafate which was over the border in Argentine Patagonia, and we really wanted to see the Perito Moreno glacier while we were there. Due to a bit of a misunderstanding at our hostel we'd failed to get seats on the morning bus to El Calafate. Then after waiting hours to find out what was happening, the bus company decided to cancel the evening bus. We tried to rent a car, but there were none available, that we could take across the border anyway. We really wanted to see the glacier, so we were getting quite stressed about it. Our only option was to try to hitchhike the 360km journey.

Even though we were a bit anxious about this, we'd heard it was pretty normal to hitchhike around these parts, and amazingly it turned out to be a really enjoyable day, meeting some unbelievable hospitality along the way.

First for some lunch... we didn't know how long this would take...

The first stretch of road...

So, we stuck our thumbs out and hoped for the best, it was pretty cold and windy, but at least it wasn't raining. The first car gave us an apologetic shrug, they were full up. Then the second car pulled in, easy! A lovely old man, with a crochet cover on the back seat of his little car. He took us to the two border posts to get our stamps and then dropped us off at the border town in Argentina.

Here's our driver coming out from the office at the Argentine border...

In Rio Turbes (the border town), we approached a guy working on the pumps at a garage, to ask him where the road to El Calafate was. As we approached him, he gave us a big hello, and handshakes and kisses before he even asked us what we wanted! Then he pointed us in the right direction, and we set off, unfortunately the road out of town was closed due to a strike, which meant we'd have to walk 3km to get to the other side...

One of the many roadside shrines you see in South America...

While we walked on through the fires and picket lines on the far side of the blockade, a man sitting in a car called out to us to ask us where we were going. Turns out he was waiting to collect his wife from the protest and although he wasn't going our way, he'd drop us to the crossroads. After a bit of a chat, we got to the crossroads and he got out a piece of paper to give us him and his wife's three phone numbers, and their home address, saying if we had any trouble to ring him and he'd come and collect us and we could stay with them! The town he was from was called 'The 28th of November', which was the next day, so there was going to be a big party going on, so we should come for that! We would have loved to but, since we had a flight the next day we had to press on.

After about ten minutes wait, the next car stopped. It was another man in a massive, brand new pickup truck. Luxury. The road was really flat and straight through the dry grasslands of the Patagonian Steppe, so he sped along and got us to the next town in record time, with views of flamingos feeding at the many salt lakes along the way.

The next town 'La Esperanza' looked big on the map but when we got there, it consisted of a restaurant, a garage and a few houses. Luckily there would be a bus going from here to El Calafate at 10pm so we knew we'd made it, but since that was four hours later, we decided to try get a lift. We were soon picked up by three teenagers looking for a laugh. Brian thought they looked like 'ruffians' but they turned out to be really nice, and entertained us with music videos on their portable dvd player plugged into massive speakers. They dropped us to the hostel door and when we gave them a bit of money for their troubles they were delighted.

The next day we were up early and on the bus to the 'Parque Nacional de los Glaciares.'

The 'Calafate' bush...

The Patagonian ice field, which is shared with Chile, (you can also see glaciers in the Torres del Paine park), is the third largest in the world, after the Antarctica and Greenland. The Perito Moreno glacier which we were going to see, is the only one in the Parque de los Glaciares that isn't retreating due to global warming.

It was a pretty dull wet day, but I think it would've looked good in any weather, apparently the ice looks bluer on cloudy days....

The trees were covered in the 'old mans beard' lichen - a sign of good air quality supposedly...

There was a 6km long path giving various viewpoints of the huge glacier. You could hear it creaking and groaning constantly as it pushed forward and bits of ice broke off. Sometimes it can throw chunks of ice great distances and in twenty years 32 people had been killed by getting too close before the walkway was built.